Your Precious Family History by Donna B. Gawell

Writers of all genres need to carve out some time to write about their ancestors, as their stories will only be preserved if someone takes the time to write them down. As a genealogist and author, the inspiration for my novels comes from the lives of the few ancestors who were infamous and the majority whose lives were less spectacular.

I assumed all of my ancestors were like my grandparents: ordinary folks who did little more than be born, marry, work, and die. Most were average citizens, but I learned some were abolitionists, many in Poland were serfs until 1848, and others served honorably in each American war or skirmish. I now see about a dozen stories right there!

You might discover an infamous ancestor such as my 9^th great grandmother, Mehitabel Braybrooke.  My first reaction was “Wow! That’s an ugly name!” when I first found her in my family tree. Then, I started noticing the word “witch” pop up! And so my first historical novel, In the Shadow of Salem was born after making sense of the bits and pieces found in town and court documents from the 1600’s.

Another source for a fascinating family history story is your ancestors’ setting. My current novel-in-progress is set in the village of my great grandparents in Poland during the Holocaust. They lived in a wilderness area where Hitler built the largest SS training camp outside of Germany and his top-secret research facility for the V1 and V2 rockets. My family, who were forced-laborers for the Nazis, and their priest are the main characters in the novel. They were very poor Catholics who lived during these extraordinary and terrible times. I just returned from a whirlwind research trip to Poland and came away amazed at the bravery of the Polish people.

Other stories were inspired as I unearthed more ancestral records. There was my Swedish great-grandmother Augusta who found herself the recipient of an unwelcome “parting gift” when her beau (my great grandfather) went to America to work as a seaman. I found numerous records from Sweden revealing her real story, not the one she told in America to cover up the birth of her illegitimate child. My Mennonite ancestors’ records tell of their frightening experiences as German settlers in western Pennsylvania when hostile Native Americans besieged them in the early 1800’s.

Family history doesn’t have to be written with the intention of big-time publishing. Start small and write the stories your parents or grandparents told you. You may be like I was−the “document poor” descendant who inherited no family Bible, diary, or even photos before 1940.  You might be one of the fortunate who inherited “the stuff.”

Historians note that we rarely know any stories about our ancestors who came before our own grandparents. This ignorance is a literary and genealogical tragedy. Of all the types of writing we can do, none is more precious than the stories of those who came before us.

Is there a relative in your family background whose life might make an interesting story?

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Donna is a writer and genealogist who enjoys writing novels about her infamous and more humble ancestors. She lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband Mark. Her website, www.DonnaGawell.com features history and travel articles.

Creative Use of Family History by Martha Rogers

Let's face it, story ideas are a dime a dozen. But the ones that mean the most to us as writers can come from a personal connection. Today, author Martha Rogers gives us insight into how her latest novel came about. -- Sandy

Martha: While doing genealogy research on my father’s side of the family, I came across some fascinating information. When I asked my dad about my grandparents and great-grandparents, he handed me a packet of letters his father had given him. Those letters dated back to 1860 and started me on the hunt for even more information.

What I found led me to the desire to write about my great-grandparents and their love story during the Civil War. I wanted to use not only their story, but also all the facts of things that happened around that time. The first story was for my cousins and other family members only, but as my aunts began to add information and show me pictures they had from their youth and my grandparents, the more I wanted to include in the novel.

Taking real information and facts and turning them into a fictional account was both fun and daunting at the same time. I wanted to stay true to the character of my great-grandparents, but I also wanted to portray the times in which they lived in a realistic manner. That meant more hours of research and visiting the places where they lived.

Using the letters and parts of a journal, I wove the information into a story using real characters in real places but with fictional situations. When given just enough information to make a story, I could then let my imagination take over and create a plot that would take my characters on a journey to love while incorporating real events and facts about those months following the war.

The most difficult part was knowing how much to embellish the truth and where to stick to the facts. If you know anything about your ancestors, look at the time in which they lived and what their life may have been like. From there you may find the story that sparks your imagination and leads to a novel.

Have you ever turned family history into a story? Have you used genealogy research in any of plots? 

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Martha Rogers is a free-lance writer and the author of the Winds Across the Prairie and Seasons of the

Heart series as well as the novella, Key to Her Heart in River Walk Christmas and Not on the Menu in Sugar and Grits. Love Stays True, the first book in her third series, The Homeward Journey, is now available. She was named Writer of the Year at the Texas Christian Writers Conference in 2009 and is a member of ACFW and writes the weekly Verse of the Week for the ACFW Loop. In addition to fiction, Martha has contributed to compilations by Wayne Holmes, Debra White-Smith and Karen O’ Connor as well as various devotion books. Martha is a frequent speaker for writing workshops and the Texas Christian Writers Conference. She is a retired teacher and lives in Houston with her husband, Rex. Their favorite pastime is spending time with their nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.